Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Mrs. White, and I'm a citizenship teacher.

Welcome to my lesson.

I hope you're going to enjoy it.

And I hope you're going to learn an awful lot.

Before we get started, please grab a pen and some paper, clear decks, make some space, get ready to learn, and then we'll get going.

So today's lesson is going to be about the criminal justice system.

We are looking at the criminal justice system for people, young people ages 10 to 17.

because 10 is the age of criminal responsibility.

And at 18 you become an adult.

So you're treated differently under the system.

So we're specifically going to look at young people today.

In this lesson we're going to use detailed case study of a crime committed by young person.

So that helps you understand the process of the criminal justice system for a young person.

How and why young people are treated differently to adults in the justice system and about sentencing for a young person and the reason for different types of sentence.

Now, before we get started, it's really important for us to realise that actually, young people are more likely to be victims of crimes than they are to be criminals.

So if you have a look at the data here, you'll see that in 2017 to 18, 27,700 children were cautioned or sentenced.

However, in 2018, the same time scale, 423,000 children, age 10 to 15 were victims of violent crime.

So actually you're far more likely to be a victim of crime than you are to be a criminal.

Now we're going to look at Adam's case today.

Now, if she wants to look at this in more detail, you can go to BBC bite-size and Google, I'm sorry, search Adam's case.

And we're going to look at the video of Adam's case and our whole lesson will be about his situation.

Let's what's the film.

Central London, every day, hundreds of thousands of people go about their busy lives peacefully and safely.

But every day, these crowds attract a small minority of young people who commit crime.

Here in Oxford street.

It's one of the busiest shopping streets in London.

My primary experience here is shoplifting this crime in particular, because it's full of all the big brand name shops.

DC.

Shane O'Neill works for the metropolitan police.

It's his role to investigate the whole range of crimes committed in the area.

This crime accounts for six arrests per day.

Majority of those, between 14 and 17 year olds, we have variety of crimes to concern with street crimes, such as robberies theft offences.

The reason for that would be that this is predominantly a tourist area and these tend to come here as well.

Following those tourists.

This video is about a robbery investigation because we can't show a real young offender.

We created a fictional character.

Adam played by an actor.

He snatched a bag and been caught rummaging through it Adam is 17 and comes from inner London.

He has no previous criminal record but he bunks off school drinks regularly and has a difficult relationship with his violent alcoholic father.

Okay? So we watched that and we saw that the police have now arrested Adam.

When they've made, made that arrest, they always contact the parents or guardian.

Somebody is contacted because you've got a right to your parents, being there with you and your parents have to know as well.

And they collect evidence at that point.

Now all of the information of police collect is kept on their database.

If a person's found guilty, if it's not guilty, it's normally deleted, but, but it can be kept for up to three years.

So have a look.

They're collecting his fingerprints.

They're taking swaps from inside his mouth, the buccal cells in there to collect DNA.

And they're also taking photographs from every angle so that he can be recognised.

So this information is part of the evidence that the police will use.

So as we already start, we've started here.

We can think about the criminal justice system.

There's a lot of people involved in this.

So, so far we've looked to the police officer, but let's see if you can match the descriptions of the other people who are involved in the criminal justice system.

And that we're going to see today.

What I'd like you to do as a first exercise is to match up descriptions.

I don't expect you to write the whole thing down, but I'd like you to say, for example, if you think A police officer is 4 here's more serious cases, then put that put A 4 and I'd like you to match those descriptions up.

And then we're going to have a look at the answers.

So did you get it right? Let's have a look.

So first of all, police officer that's 5.

Keeps the peace upholds the law.

They make arrest and they collect evidence.

A solicitor, they give legal advice and representation.

The youth offending team, now they supervise 10 to 18 year olds who've been sentenced by a court.

A judge, here's more serious cases.

And they sit in youth courts and they're often called district judges.

And magistrate is 1 and they hear less serious cases and in youth courts as well.

And the last one F is a youth offender panel and a panel of community volunteers and youth offending team members who help them person make up for the crime.

So have a look at all those and see if you've, if you've got them matched up, right? And give yourself a tick.

If you have, and that make corrections, if you haven't.

Now a police officer interviews, the young person a parent or guardians present, and a solicitor attends to represent them.

It's more reassuring having the parent there, even though they're probably quite cross parents at that point in time, it gives that person the support that they need.

The other thing is that duty solicitor is there and they have been, they've come in because they're on duty.

They are not members of the, they're not police.

They're there to give legal advice to the young person that has been accused.

So you don't have to worry about not not having a family solicitor.

You can, you can use the duty solicitor that they provide.

Now, the next task I'd like you to do is think about what is evidence.

And I'd like to make a list of all the things you think might be collected as evidence by the police in a case, it doesn't have to be Adam's case.

I'd like you to think of all the different things that could be possibly collected that would go to court to show that a person was guilty.

So pause the video and then see if you can write your list of possible evidence.

So, let's have a look at this.

These examples Maybe you've got some of these and you can tick them off and maybe you've got more than I could think of.

So let's have a look.

We've got police interviews, CCTV footage, and the belongings of the victim, the accused's clothes, because they can take blood samples and things like that.

From that witness statements, measurements, fingerprints, DNA evidence like spit and the hair and things like that.

Mobile phone evidence, they will take the young person's mobile phone or the accused's.

It's not just in young people.

This is all cases, specialist evidence like doctors and scientists reports, arresting officer's notes, body cam footage and police lineup results.

So evidence is any physical or verbal evidence that is presented for the purpose of proving a crime.

Evidence is presented to help the court decide if a crime has been committed or not.

The crown prosecution service is the next part of the system and they decide if the case should go to court.

Now the police pass the information on to a youth specialist to look at the evidence, and then they find out about the young person's background and make a decision as to whether the case should be heard in front of a judge, who's sitting at a two part test.

So let's have look at the two part test.

The first part of this test is there enough evidence to prove without doubt that the person is committing the crime.

And the second part of the test is, is it in the public interest to take the young person to court and prosecute them.

So prosecute them means take them to court, let them have a trial, decide if are guilty or innocent, if they're guilty, then they're sentenced.

So the first one with Adam, is there enough evidence? Well, let's see, he's got the bag on him.

The witness saw him.

He was caught with the bag.

There's CCTV footage of him and there's injuries on the victim as well.

So there's lots of evidence against him.

And the next thing is, is it in the public interest to take the young person to court? Well, in this case, yes.

It's not good for society to have someone like Adam out there, mugging people and robbing them, taking away their belongings and hurting them as well.

So they're assaulting them too.

It's definitely in the public interest to take him to court.

Now, and sort of an example, where it might be that he shouldn't, it shouldn't be taken to the court could be, say, for example, an old lady has been caught in a shop.

She was shoplifting a loaf of bread.

There's CCTV.

She had the bread on her.

There was a witness as well.

And the shop manager saw her too, but they find out that actually that old lady's husband has just died and she's got no money at the moment and she's very hungry.

And actually, so it passed the first test, but it doesn't pass the second one because it wouldn't be in the public interest to take her to court.

And she's probably suffered enough from the humiliation of being caught with the loaf of bread.

She's given it back and everything everything's okay.

So it wouldn't, it wouldn't be worth it.

And also it costs a lot of money to take her through that process too.

So that's not in the public interest.

So the crown prosecution service decided Adam needs prosecuting.

Now he's going to go to youth court, but there's other courts as well.

And it's a bit different.

Youth court is a bit different from this court.

This is the crown court and the crown court is for serious crimes.

So all crimes go to magistrate's court first.

And then the magistrates, if it's serious, they send them to a crown court.

So here we've got witnesses.

We've also got judge.

You can see how they set up there, high.

We've got a clerk, who's recording all of the information.

We've got solicitors to the prosecution and the defence on both sides.

And the defendant is there as F now there's only six jury members, but that's because the diagram couldn't fit 12 in, there's actually 12 members of the jury.

And they're the ones that listened to the evidence and decide whether or not a defendant is guilty or innocent.

And the judge is the one that makes sure that the trial is fair, but a young person doesn't have a trial like that.

They go to youth court.

So let's have a look at that.

And so the case is heard in youth court and you can see how it's different.

There is a judge still, or there could be three magistrates, but in this case, they're using a district judge.

There's also, Clerks writing down the information.

There's a youth offending teamworker there.

Adam is there in the middle as the defendant, his parent is sat with him and there's also a solicitor.

And the important thing in a youth court is it's a closed court.

There won't be any members of the public there or the press to come in and watch what's happening.

So it's far less intimidating.

And it means that the young person can ask questions and they're treated in a much kinder way than it would be in a crown court.

So now we're going to watch Adam in court and the judge is going to is going to question him and we'll just see the end of that now.

Well Adam it's a close call and your plea of guilty helps no end because it means that you're willing to accept responsibility for what you've done.

And young people find that quite hard.

And because of that plea of guilty, instead of considering a custodial sentence, I can refer you to a youth offender panel, but I missed her name.

And I'm thinking of making a referral order for 12 months to the Westminster youth offender panel.

The few minutes that he spent with Adam, the judge has identified areas of Adam's behaviour that he wants the youth offending team to work on.

And also the possibility of a male mentor to one provider, not necessarily a father figure, but a male figure with some advice, somebody with some experience of life.

Okay so we've had to look at that and he's made a referral to youth offending team for more information about the aims of sentencing, see the worksheet that's attached to the lesson resources, and that will give you lots more answers.

Now Adam's next stage is meeting the youth offending team.

So after the judge makes the referral order, the youth offending team works with the young person to address their offending behaviour and they do assessing, they find out what their needs are and they create an intervention programme.

And the young offender has to meet with the youth offending team regularly.

And it has strict rules that the young person has to stick to, things like having to turn up exactly on time, making sure that they carry out all the things that they've been asked to do.

When complete the young person has no recorded conviction.

So you can see why this is a good thing for a young person.

They're trying to stop them offending behaviour.

And they are, they are making sure that that young person isn't, you know, scarred for life on their record with this conviction.

So once they've done all the things that the youth offending team want them to do, that's taken away when she's really important, that gives that young person a fresh start.

And that means they can look at what's happened with Adam and, and help him to move on, But the youth offending team have other members as well.

So the youth funding key worker, he writes a report that that's given to the youth offending panel, and they highlight the concerns about the young person, but there's also things like substance abuse, education and mental health issues.

And these can be dealt with, by experts who work in the youth offending team too.

So lots of support can be put in place for that young person that you wouldn't get if you were an adult.

And that means that they can help him turn his behaviour around and to get out of the sort of offending behaviour.

Now, this has been moved onto the youth offending panel and the panel decides term of the referral order after meeting the young offender and their case worker, now at that this point I'd like you to make notes Cause we're going to watch a video and it's six minutes long.

And I'd like to make notes about the youth offending panel and what they say in that.

How far away were you from the cash machine? Why do you need to know all this man? It's just important to know the details of the offence so that we can talk about it properly.

So she was walking away from you then what did you do? Then I followed her.

Adam has committed a violent street robbery.

He is 17 and has been sentenced to a 12 month referral order.

The terms of the order are about to be decided by youth offender panel, which contains two volunteer members of the community because we can't show a real young offender.

We've briefed actors to play Adam and his mum, all the others in the video of real panel members and are treating it as though it's a real case.

What the panel does is help young people who've offended not offend again and make up for what they've done.

By day Nasa Turabi is a team leader at a high powered management consultancy, but at least one evening a fortnight he volunteers as a member of a youth offender panel for Westminster.

The community needs to be involved because I think the community is always a victim when it comes to youth offending and restorative justice is all about making up for what young people have done.

And so, if the victim can't be there then I think the community has to be there.

Having real people who don't get paid, can be a real eye opener for young people to realise that actually it's not just the direct victims or them or the family that are affected, but members of the wider community can also be affected Acting as advisor to the community volunteers is a representative of the youth offending team sitting beside Adam is Luke, his caseworker who has compiled a report, providing the panel with information on Adam's circumstances.

The report is totally crucial really.

The report is, the way that we know how to address the case because every case is different.

And so you need to identify what those main issues are so that you can really grapple with them in the meeting.

What were you thinking when she was holding onto it? Let go.

What I find difficult is you expected her to let go of her own bag, but it's not yours so shouldn't it have been you who should have just let go of the bag? Yeah but you asked me what I was thinking at the time.

Don't be rude.

I'm not being rude, they just asked what I was thinking.

I was thinking let go.

So what do you think now about that? What do you mean? What have been your thoughts since? I don't know.

I just think it's got a bit blown out of proportion, like from the fact that she's got it back.

She's even got her money back, she's got her bag back.

She's not got no problem and I've got to do all this in it.

So she didn't really get hurt.

She got a graze or whatever.

And I'm sorry about that.

She got hurt and I didn't mean to hurt her, I've said that already to you.

Quite often, a young person and Adam did this tonight, minimises the offence to begin with.

He doesn't really want to take full responsibility for it.

And that's what we were trying to do.

We were trying to ask probing questions to get him to own up to it essentially.

I mean, we know he's owned up to the actual offence, but we really want him to see what the impact has been on the people affected.

Who else do you think has been affected apart from the woman you actually robbed? I don't know Have a think You lot for having to sit here That's one, yeah.

Her family.

Her family, Yeah.

My mum.

Yeah.

Someone else in this room, maybe? What, luke? No, you.

You're here, you're now on a court order.

Yeah Cheryl, when you heard about this can you tell me how you felt? I think I was just shocked.

You know, I guess I was just, I was really disappointed and quite disgusted really.

Do you have anything to say to your mum Adam No.

after hearing that? No? Adam's apparent lack of empathy for his mother leads the panel to try another approach to making him think about how his actions have affected others.

So, Adam, I notice from the papers that you have a younger brother, do you have quite good relationship with him? Yeah, all right.

You look after him? Yeah I take them to school and that, look after him and that sometimes.

How would you feel if you found out that your brother was robbed? I'd be angry.

And how'd you think your brother would feel? Be angry.

You know, we're not psychologists, we're volunteers.

We're in a sense, were sort of amateurs on this.

It's about being able to ask the right sort of questions.

How do you think he'd feel walking down the street, walking down the same street where he got mugged? Probably a bit scared in it.

Yeah, I think that's exactly how this young woman would feel.

I mean, it's really good to hear you say that because you know, it shows that you've got some understanding of what this kind of offence, what robbing someone actually does.

I think it makes people scared.

I'd feel scared.

I think we'd all feel scared.

If someone came up to me from behind and grabbed my bag and ran off, it's quite, it's shocking.

Based on the caseworker's report and tonight's meeting with Adam, the panel decide the terms of the referral order.

This includes 60 hours community reparation and meetings with education and substance misuse workers to help address his truancy and drinking problems. Great, we're finished.

Thanks for this.

We'll see you in about six weeks.

Thank you.

Good luck, I think the meeting went quite well and we got Adam to understand a bit more about how the victim feels, might feel and who might be affected.

So I think that's a success.

Adam will have to return three or four times for the panel to assess his progress.

In addition to his twice weekly supervision appointments in 12 months, if he doesn't re offend or breach his contract, his criminal record will be erased.

So you've watched the video and you understand the whole process that's happened.

So the crimes committed, they're arrested.

They collect evidence.

They go through the youth offending team and then to the panel, I'd like you to draw a flow chart now.

And I would like to show what happens to young people in the criminal justice system.

I'd like you to say, who's involved in each part of the process.

Let's spend about eight minutes doing this.

Then I'd like you to start your flow chart with the crime as well.

So pause the video and then restart it when you've done your flow chart.

So let's have a look.

What did you get? So we've got the crimes committed.

Let's see who's involved.

We've got the offender, the victim and witnesses, an arrest is made.

We've got the police, solicitor offender and parent, the accused is sent to youth court.

So there's a district judge, the offender, the youth offending team, magistrates maybe, a parent, clerk and legal advisors like solicitors.

And we've got the youth attending team meeting that they go to.

So there's the offender and the key worker and specialists if they're needed.

And then finally the youth offending panel, the offender, the community volunteers, the youth offending team and the key worker and parent, and they decide the terms of the referral order.

So what the young person is going to have to do to make sure that they have their offence written off.

So usually takes about a year for them to do that.

So we've looked at the whole of the process of the, what happens to a young person.

What I'd like you to do is think back again to the crown court versus youth court and see how much, what is different.

And actually that's much more support for young people.

If the system is, is done well, and if people are all involved, can carry out their jobs properly, then it's a really good system to help a young person turn around their behaviour and then get back onto a path where their life can be successful and crime free.

So what did we learn this lesson? So we looked at the process of the criminal justice system for a young person, and we compared the youth court and how an adult would be treated.

And we looked at sentencing for a young person, the reasons for the type of sentence, and that's in the takeaway task as well.

So I'd like you to have look at the worksheet that explains the five main theories of punishment and each punishment, sorry, each purpose.

I'd like you to discuss them at home, discuss it with someone at home, someone who might be interested in these sort of things.

And I want you to think of what do you think the most important aim of punishment should be? And then I would like you to write down and think about why are young people under 18 treated differently in the criminal justice system.

Now there's a couple of just points to put in with your takeaway task.

There's evidence to suggest harsh punishments might make a person more resentful of society.

So commit more crime.

And also the types of punishment that can be given for a particular crime is determined by law.

Other countries might have different punishments for the same crime.

So remember, we're talking about England in this situation who come over here.

There we go.

So I've hoped, I hope that you've enjoyed the lesson today.

I hope that you feel, you know the difference between what happens to a young person and what could possibly happen to an adult.

And I hope that you felt like you've learned a lot, enjoy doing the quiz at the end to test your learning and I'll see you again soon.

Bye!.